Did NASA just ADMIT to extraterrestrial life?

reply to post by Ross 54


Did you ever get any sort of reply from discovery magazine?

It seems like yesterday we were discussing this topic! And now curiousity has set foot on mars. Lets see if anything good comes from this expedition.

What are the chances that we have already infested/seeded mars with bacteria from earth? As careful as the technicians probably were, it seems likely to me that the rovers could have brought bacteria that could have survived the long journey and found a way to survive on the red planet.

If I was a technician and had the proper access I might have been tempted to tuck away some mold spores, bacteria or something like this in some out of sight corner of the Rover.

A dimes worth of water bears might be eking out a living there now for all we know.

Originally posted by Sparky63
What are the chances that we have already infested/seeded mars with bacteria from earth?

Good point, it's very possible, despite much caution taken to avoid it. NASA actually unknowingly brought home bacteria that had survived 30 years on Apollo 12 equipment on the moon.
science.nasa.gov...

However, I believe that DNA would reveal if martian bacteria were identical to earthly bacteria, or not. I find it unlikely that native martian life would have identical DNA to species on Earth, they would have developed under very different conditions, even in the event that they shared a common ancestor.

reply to post by Sparky63

It is very possible and a serious concern for NASA. In fact they have an office devoted entirely to preventing this (as best as they can).

Many forms of life have been shown to survive the harshness of outer space.

Spores, lichens, certain insects, ect.

www.theregister.co.uk...

Originally posted by ScientificUAPer

Originally posted by Sparky63
What are the chances that we have already infested/seeded mars with bacteria from earth?

Good point, it's very possible, despite much caution taken to avoid it. NASA actually unknowingly brought home bacteria that had survived 30 years on Apollo 12 equipment on the moon.
science.nasa.gov...

However, I believe that DNA would reveal if martian bacteria were identical to earthly bacteria, or not. I find it unlikely that native martian life would have identical DNA to species on Earth, they would have developed under very different conditions, even in the event that they shared a common ancestor.

There is a very huge chance of cross contamination of life between mars and earth. We know for a fact that ejecta from both planets could reach the other. We also know that some species on earth can survive the environment in outter space as you linked!

If species shared a common ancestor then we could deff tell through DNA testing. However theres also the possibility that mars could have/had native life. We would have to assume in that case, their information storing/sharing system would be somewhat different from life on earth. A whole new tree of life!

Im curious. What if both earth and mars have their own native life. But they used the same chemicals for information storing and sharing. would we be able to tell the difference? I think it is safe to say that most forms of life as we define it, in the universe, would be either carbon based or silicon based due to the potential complexity of molecules that utilize elements with 4 bonding sites.

Originally posted by VonDoomen
..However theres also the possibility that mars could have/had native life. We would have to assume in that case, their information storing/sharing system would be somewhat different from life on earth. ...

Yes, that would be extremely interesting, I think, if there was no DNA, or just another way of employing it.

Originally posted by VonDoomen
Im curious. What if both earth and mars have their own native life. But they used the same chemicals for information storing and sharing. would we be able to tell the difference? ..

Yes, we would know if things were different, no doubt.

Originally posted by Sparky63
What are the chances that we have already infested/seeded mars with bacteria from earth? As careful as the technicians probably were, it seems likely to me that the rovers could have brought bacteria that could have survived the long journey and found a way to survive on the red planet.

If I was a technician and had the proper access I might have been tempted to tuck away some mold spores, bacteria or something like this in some out of sight corner of the Rover.

A dimes worth of water bears might be eking out a living there now for all we know.

I dont know why they would go to such extents to prevent it.,,..,., part of the experiment of the rover,, should have been carrying tons of prebiotic acids and proteins, and chemicals and water,.,. the huge sky crane should have been full of this stuff and crash landed making a whole spilling all of the chemicals and everything everywhere.,.,., and then the rover would travel around making its way to the crash site eventually to see if anything happened,,, and then go back a year or more later,..,.,